Borrowing from the world of Stephen Covey, Mario Sundar of LinkedIn moderated a panel on the “seven habits of highly effective business bloggers” last month at BlogWorld Expo. The panel included Blog Council member Lionel Menchaca of Dell, Nicki Dugan of Yahoo!, Carolyn Abram of Facebook, and Tom Hoehn of Kodak.
1. Status: It’s a relationship and it’s complicated
Start a corporate blog only if you’re in it for the long haul. Every panelist described the genesis of their respective blog, it’s origins, and most importantly how the blog impacted the company’s relationship with the users. I also got them talking about some of the challenges and pitfalls associated with it.
2. Tell Honest, Current Stories
As Jack Welch described the one rule of corporate blogging: “Just be Authentic“. The only way to build credibility with your users is by toning down the PR speak and amping up the straight talk. We also went over some of the privacy issues that one has to deal with while running a company blog.
3. Know your limits
Another area that you must keep in mind (this is relevant more for Fortune 500 than Inc 500 companies) are the legal landmines you have to navigate. But remember, your legal team is there to help you. So, having them support you a 100% right from the start and drafting best practices is key to ensure success.
4. Make lemonade
Social Media jujitsu is what we called it (thanks to Groundswell for the inspiration). How do you take a seemingly negative situation – irate users; and turn that over to a positive. Nicki, Carolyn and Lionel shared some pretty inspirational stories that ranged from the Facebook News feed to Yahoo! TV. Key here is putting your users first and listening to them.
5. One size doesn’t fit all
As I’ve often said before; do not start a corporate blog unless you have a goal in mind. Given that different companies start a corporate blog for different purposes – some may use it to educate their users while some others for recruitment. Thus best practices are also going to vary from one example to the other.
The panelists got into a spirited discussion of whether comments are necessary for a blog and under what conditions. Does your company have a corporate blog? And, if so, do you allow comments? Feel free to share.
6. Learn as you go
On short notice, I threw out a question to the panel on the biggest lesson learned during their stewardship of their respective company blogs. Of course, they were all able to effortlessly answer the questions with many of their answers highlighting the improvisational nature of the job.
7. It’s not just words
And, finally a glimpse into the future. Ideas shared focused on the multimedia nature of the future. As you may notice many corporate blogs are increasingly stepping into social media (which by definition includes pictures – Flickr, video – YouTube, and the likes). What do you think does the future of corporate blogging hold?
Clorox: Using gaming strategies to grow community
Jim Sterne: Social media metrics
BlogWell: How big brands use social media